This is a German film based on a real person called Georg Elser who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler in the 1939. From the director of 'Diana' fame and it was one of the contenders from the Germany to represent the nation at the 88th American Academy Awards, but in the end it lost the bet to another WWII drama. So if you are interested in the WWII, then you should try it. But remember this is not a war film like guns and bombs, it just takes place around the same time.
The film reveals something we never knew before. Georg Elser is a carpenter by profession and a part time musician. Hails from the rural Germany who falls in love with a married woman. But the real story begins after he failed his mission, later he caught by police and tortured to confess his crime. Then it takes us a few years back and reveals part by part his life and the event related to the opening scene.
Basically, this film ends before beginning to take off. Precisely to say, when the Elser's plan flopped/ended, the film almost lost its strength. Just like the title says, that 13 minutes of the film was something like a short film. But what comes later were different than all the information I read about the film. So the rest of the film was an interrogation that tells both his personal life, as well as how he prepared to kill the Hitler and the reason behind it.
Little slow and mostly boring, nonetheless inspired by a real person makes this watchable. Because what he attempted was not some silly thing. If, if he had succeeded that, the history would have been rewritten. Maybe the aftermath of that, who knows what the world would have looked like right now without the WWII. The tension might have still persisted, but kind of impossible to predict anything particular about that theory.
"If humanity is not free, everything dies with it."
Anyway, Georg Elser's personal life was not that interesting, but I am disappointed about this film that failed to disclose his intellectual undertaking to show us on the screen very inspiring way or maybe you can say thrill way. Because those parts comes and goes like a shooting star, I mean that fast. The remaining film drags mostly with drama. Since the storytelling was split into frequent of the present timeline (1939) and flashbacks, some of the important events kept for the final revelation, but did not strike.
Some of the scenes were raw, but not as much as a few the WWII films I had seen. The problem for me was it is not sentimental as it should have been. Because many events how they have turned out should have had left the strong feeling on the viewers. It's not the bad performances, I actually liked everybody, but the screenplay was not designed for its full potential. I don't know what is the original source material, but it was like they hurried to make it without more research.
When a film is a biography, I don't care about the entertainment. But I always look for the reason why it deserved to be a film. In that perspective, this film interested me for just one reason and that's I already mentioned somewhere in the above. I did not like as much as the critics and some of the film fanatics did. All I wanted was it to be a little clever, maybe a fine editing to place the scenes at the right spots would have saved it. I think I can suggest it, just to know about this person, but other than the its nothing very impressive. Mostly anybody would predict the story, especially the conclusion.
6.5/10
